The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Monday, February 29, 2016

The Lost Armitage Chapel -- Nos. 743-745 10th Avenue

Architectural Record, 1903 (copyright expired)

As the 19th century rolled over into the 20th,
the block of Tenth Avenue, between 50th and 51st Streets
was lined with small shops and dingy tenements.For decades the neighborhood had been known as Hell’s Kitchen—a place
rife with poverty, crime, vice and despair.

In 1894 the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church established Armitage
House at No. 343 West 47th Street, between Eighth and Ninth
Avenues.It was described by the Annual
Report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1900 as “a center of benevolent
endeavor, where a day nursery, kindergarten and other work, religious and
secular, have since been carried on.”

Armitage House was an early product of the Settlement House
Movement.Reformers hoped that by
providing slum children a safe place to play, by teaching impoverished women
about nutrition and health, and giving them skills to earn a living, their
miserable lives could be improved.The
day nurseries and kindergartens provided women freedom to work during the day
and add to the family’s income.

Almost from the day it opened, Armitage House was overtaxed
and in 1897 a committee was formed to investigate the needs Hell’s Kitchen
neighborhood.On the committee were the
Fifth Avenue Baptist Church’s most notable congregant, John D. Rockefeller, Sr.,
and his daughter Alta.

The decision of the committee was to enlarge the operations
of the settlement house.Rockefeller
purchased about half of the western side of Tenth Avenue, from the 50th
Street corner through No. 745.A new
five-story West Side Neighborhood House would take up the corner, two old
brownstones would provide what today would be called low-income housing, and a
mission church building, the Armitage Chapel, would replace the two small
stores at Nos. 743 and 745.

The two buildings were constructed mostly by men recruited
from the neighborhood.Archibald A.
Hill, head of the project, explained to The Commons in January 1901, “As far as
possible the neighbors were given preference in filling [construction] positions.”

Like the settlement house, the Armitage Chapel was clad in
red Harvard brick, laid in Flemish bond, with green-black header bricks.Vaguely Sicilian Romanesque, its no-nonsense
design was humble at best when compared to the more elaborate settlement house.

Between the new West Side Neighborhood House and the Chapel, an existing tenement remained. The Commons, January 1901 (copyright expired)

But the often-acerbic architecture critic Montgomery
Schuyler was lavish in his praise.“Evidently
it has been built at the ‘irreducible minimum’ of cost, with not a dollar to be
had for ornamental superfluities.And
yet it is not only inoffensive, which is rather high praise to be deserved in
such conditions.It even takes on
something of architectural character by taking on some structural and
functional expression.”

Schuyler pointed out that “cheap” did not necessarily
translate to “bad.”“Slight, cheap and
simple as the thing is, there has gone some thought to the devising of it.Compare it with its flanking neighbors, which
are merely the common New York tenement houses, with their pretentious sham
cornices, and see how its plainness becomes even distinguished.If our cheapest buildings were all as good as
this, what a basis we should have for the elaboration of it into architecture
as it became more costly.”

The chapel was 50 feet wide and extended 65 feet back,
affording space for 350 worshipers.A “primary
room” upstairs held 150 and could be opened up as a gallery, increasing the total
seating to 450.There were also three
classrooms and three offices (one for the pastor and two secretaries’ rooms).The yard behind the chapel became an
open-air playground—a rarity in the crowded, squalid tenement neighborhood.

Archibald A. Hill was quick to point out that the outreach
of the Fifth Avenue Baptists Church in Hell’s Kitchen was not purely
religious.He explained in January 1901 “The
Settlement is not to be used as a bait to lure any one to the chapel.It exists to do that which in itself is worth
the doing and hence has no motive back of the deed.”

In 1902 the Legal Aid Society was located in the second
floor of the old tenement building next door, and George Duer ran his street
level shop there.Among the residents in
the building was Mrs. Margaret McKeever, a widow.

On Independence Day that year Mrs. McKeever was not at home
in her top floor apartment as neighborhood boys played with fireworks in the
street.With uncanny bad luck a Roman
candle shot into the air and straight into Mrs. McKeever’s open window where it
exploded on her bed.

A fire ensued, unnoticed by the other tenants until a man on
the opposite side of the avenue noticed smoke.The New York Times reported “Two alarms were sent in during the
excitement which followed…This brought a large force of firemen and the reserves
from the West Forty-seventh Street Police Station.”

The fire fighters broke into Mrs. McKeever’s apartment and “after
a hard fight” were successful in confining the fire to the top floor.At one point, when the flames were bursting
through the window, the Chapel and the rest of the tenement seemed in jeopardy.

The loss was significant.John D. Rockefeller’s building suffered $4,000 damages (more than
$115,000 in 2016 dollars), and the lower floors were damaged by water.

The Fifth Avenue Baptist Church’s assistant pastor, the Rev.
W. S. Richardson, had been transferred from the fashionable Fifth Avenue church
to the Hell’s Kitchen chapel upon its opening in 1901.He threw himself head-long into the work in
the gritty neighborhood.Working with
him in 1907 was W. H. Hellier, who addressed John D. Rockefeller, Jr.’s Bible
Class at the Fifth Avenue church on January 6 that year.

“You frequently hear that we have a tough element of
citizens over on the West Side,” he began.“In our neighborhood there are six saloons.I shall be satisfied if we can put even one
of them out of business.”

Hellier had a novel scheme for defeating the saloons, and he
asked for volunteers from the upscale congregation.“My idea is to give a free Saturday night
concert at the chapel to counteract the drawing power of these places.I want young men who can play the piano and
offer other service in the entertainment line.Instead of going to the saloon
for recreation on the night of pay day, we will offer the workingman another
place, and it will cost him less.Who
will help?”

Not one hand was raised; but the Hellier was optimistic.The New-York Tribune noted “It is believed
that by next Sunday, when the class has had time to think it over, there will be
plenty of volunteers.”

Hellier’s idea of luring the Hell’s Kitchen men away from
the saloons and youths from the nickelodeons by providing entertainment
expanded the following year.In 1908 the
chapel initiated a silent moving-picture screening every Tuesday night.A beer
or a nickelodeon cost a nickel; admission to the Armitage Chapel’s movie show
was a penny.The average attendance was
about 250 youngsters alone.

On November 11, 1909 John D. Rockefeller, Jr. had the titles
to all of the Settlement House properties—including the Chapel—transferred to
himself.For the past decade they had
been held in the name of James A. Jenkins, John D. Rockefeller, Sr.’s private
secretary.

His motive in taking over ownership from his father was most
likely exposed five months later when, on April 10, 1910, plans were filed by theater
architect Thomas W. Lamb to convert the Armitage Chapel into a moving picture
house.The New York Times expounded, “The
alterations will not be very extensive, consisting of enlarging the platform
and installing a fireproof screen and building an operator’s booth.”

The venture did not last long.On January 5, 1915 the Young Women’s
Christian Association announced it had hired architect William S. Miller to
rebuild the former chapel “into a swimming pool and restaurant.”Miller’s plans called for reducing the structure
“in size to a one-story building” for the joint swimming pool-restaurant.

By the 1970s Hell’s Kitchen was, finally, seeing
improvement.The neighborhood had maintained
its reputation as a squalid, dangerous area well into the second half of the
century.It was the setting for Leonard
Bernstein’s 1957 musical West Side Story which exposed the area’s racial and gang tensions.But now many of
the old tenements and neglected buildings were being razed for modern housing.

photo tours.vht.com

In 1976 the entire block where the Armitage Chapel and the
West Side Neighborhood House had stood was demolished; to be replaced by the
38-story Hudson View Terrace apartments.